Mormons Make Utah a Land of Plenty

But study finds that some local Utah charities have unmet needs.

Salt Lake City--The Bishop's Storehouse looks just like a grocery store, lacking only cash registers. Run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the store is a model of Mormon industriousness: Shelves are stacked high with food made by the church itself, and nary a crumb can be found on the floor.

More than 100 such storehouses exist around the country, with the largest one here, about a mile southwest of downtown. All of the food -- as well as clothing and even furniture in adjoining stores here at Welfare Square -- is available free to needy church members who are referred by a Mormon bishop, and for the roughly 100 people per day, mostly non-Mormons, who enter through the "transients office."

While it's well known that a large percentage of Mormons tithe 10 percent of their income, the financial support for this store and other Mormon charities comes from donations above and beyond tithing. Through a practice known as "fast offering," members forgo two consecutive meals on the first Sunday of each month and give to the church the money they saved by not eating.

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Such generosity -- it's not uncommon for Mormons to give as much as 15 percent of their income to the church -- helped make Salt Lake City, where Mormons make up roughly half the population, the No. 1 metropolitan area for charitable giving, according to a Chronicle [of Philanthropy] study of federal tax records and Labor Department surveys. Four Utah counties -- the one that includes Salt Lake City and three nearby counties -- were among the 10 most generous in the country among 380 counties in which at least 10,000 people itemized their tax returns.

But that strong support for the church also helps explain why secular nonprofit groups in this metropolitan area are often wanting for cash. Wages in Salt Lake City are modest, and Mormon families tend to be large, leaving middle-income people -- especially those who tithe -- feeling stretched before they receive their first solicitation from a charity. Couple that with other Salt Lake City realities -- the city has few corporate headquarters or major foundations -- and fund raising here can be difficult.